This release actually had some Real Live Testing, and it certainly looks like things are much better now. EVERYONE should upgrade to this build, ESPECIALLY any 1.32 servers. No matter where in the world they are or what the server is used for, this is what they should be running. Install it yourselves and then urge your server admins to do the same. If they're upgrading from the 99x series as most probably are, they WILL have to read the docs or things are going to get nasty. Make sure YOU understand the changes so that you can walk them through it if they get confused.

The crucial information for the 99y series is that servers MUST run modes, which are described in painful detail in docs/cpma-q3-Modes.txt. Servers running CPMA-unaware MA maps (i.e. RA3 maps) MUST have valid definitions for those arenas, and I expect most of them don't. Again, those are described in that document. The 99y series ships with a set of definitions for those maps in the cfg-ra3/ directory, so admins can simply use "+set map_cfgdir cfg-ra3" on the command line to get up and running immediately, then tweak them later if they want.

It's imperative that people upgrade, and most of them probably won't do so any time soon unless you ask them to. This is the ONLY version that is 100% happy with 1.32, so make the effort for your own benefit.

The Challenge Pro Mode is a modification for Q3A which aims to make the game more exciting and challenging for "expert players". It is not a remake of Q3A as QW or Q2, although some features from both previous id Software games have made their way into pro mode. Includes a couple of trivial adds/hotfixes from 99x9a.

The Challenge Pro Mode's goals were, first and foremost, to make a more exciting and challenging game to play and we hoped that this would help advance Q3 into a professional sport. Designed for use with Q3 1.32, but will work fine with older versions as well. Coach mode and MVD have had a pretty significant overhaul, and they're a lot better for it. All the rather hackish elements of the original coaching code are a thing of the past now, and it's fully integrated with MVD. The PiP windows have been enhanced once again to the extent that they now behave almost exactly like normal views, all the way down to things like cg_drawGun and cg_gunX/Y/Z. Coachview itself has been reorganised to maximise player views and minimise the cruft of the "general" HUD elements (score, time, etc), and is now available in demos as well: just click to zoom in/out on players; right-click to change POVs, etc.

The premise of Unlagged is that the server can compensate for any client's lag by adding a new variable to collision detection: time. In Unlagged, the server does the hit test for instant-hit weapons at the time the player pushed the fire button, instead of when the server got the message that the player pushed the fire button. It means that if you're pinging 300 on an "Unlagged" server, you can still aim and fire any instant-hit weapon (machinegun, shotgun, lightning gun, railgun) as if you were playing on a LAN. What's new:

Full server-side lag compensation for instant-hit weapons (as in Unlagged 1.0, but this time perfectly accurate)

Client-side attack prediction for instant-hit weapons

Cheat-protected debugging options for making sure everything is working right, including lag simulation

Options to let you opt out of full lag compensation for some or all instant-hit weapons, or nudge your compensation a bit

Compensation for Quake 3's built-in 50ms lag for instant-hit weapons when players opt out of full lag compensation, and for all projectile weapons

Correction for “skipping” players (makes them much easier to hit)

Optimization for player prediction (yields 15-40% performance increase – or higher – depending on hardware and network latencies; many thanks to arQon of CPMA for bringing the problem to my attention and providing me with the first solution)

The Challenge Pro Mode (CPM) project was created by Richard 'Hoony' Sandlant in May 1999 (when the 'Q3test' was released) after he realised that Quake 3 Arena was going to have a lot of "newbie-friendly" features and after John Carmack admitted a more challenging version might be better for professional gamers (which is where the name "pro mode" came from). Notes for version 0.99x8 (9 Sep 02):

add: CPM13B map config (PG -> LG)
add: cg_predict (0-2)
replaces cg_nopredict
0 = off
1 = normal
2 = optimised
the normal prediction path is extremely slow at times
(notably around curves) and can cost you 100fps on a GHz machine
this new scheme is MUCH faster, but slightly more prone to errors.
oddly enough, it's still more accurate than the original
id prediction code (i.e. before the CPMA fixes) :)
if you have a slow machine, it's definitely worth trying.
* currently very broken on lifts
add: new scoreboard for DM
needs a lot of work still, but is VERY cool for GTV :)
(accuracy icon is for RL skill: effectiveness and direct hits)
add: assorted GTV-awareness (prepping for live MVD)
add: picture-in-picture for MVD :P
(press P to cycle window positions during playback)
add: UPS in MVDs
add: support gametype-specific spawnpoints
chg: allow mappers to specify respawn times for certain types of items
not weapons (can't play id "pro" maps with polish rules or in ffa)
not powerups (cpm13 becomes awful)
chg: acc "qualifying" shot count for PG upped from 45 to 50
chg: PickedUp and DiedWith columns renamed to Take and Drop
was too much space for something so unimportant
fix: explicitly dropping the current weapon didn't switch from it

This movie shows some Q3 games by the best CPMa players in Poland - matrox and his twin brother sting, who's just a little worse than his brother, but still one of the best in Poland. The "Power of Speed" looks very good, there's also a very good music in background (for example Nightwish).

Unlagged Freeze Tag is a teamplay modification based on Darrell Bircsak's Freeze Tag 1.5. You should catch on pretty fast - just shoot the other team up, and when they'd usually die they freeze instead. Once you have all the players on the other team frozen at the same time, your team gets a point and another round will start. To thaw a frozen teammate (a corpsicle), stand next to him for a while. When your team reaches the round limit, the game is over. There are a bunch of bug fixes, consistency tweaks for Unlagged, laggy player skip correction, CPMA/OSP's actual 50ms lag correction (the previous version used extrapolation), and some nifty new referee features.

Ultra Freeze Tag is a teamplay modification based on Darrell Bircsak's Freeze Tag 1.5. You should catch on pretty fast - just shoot the other team up, and when they'd usually die they freeze instead. Once you have all the players on the other team frozen at the same time, your team gets a point and another round will start. To thaw a frozen teammate (a corpsicle), stand next to him for a while. When your team reaches the round limit, the game is over. What's new:

The latest version of CPMA. The Challenge Pro Mode's goals were, first and foremost, to make a more exciting and challenging game to play and we hoped that this would help advance Q3 into a professional sport. Along the way we made a choice between making only small conservative changes to Q3A, and making the changes that our design team recommended. We took the path of making the changes that our design team felt were necessary.

Ultra Freeze Tag is a teamplay modification based on Darrell Bircsak's Freeze Tag 1.5. You should catch on pretty fast - just shoot the other team up, and when they'd usually die they freeze instead. Once you have all the players on the other team frozen at the same time, your team gets a point and another round will start. To thaw a frozen teammate (a corpsicle), stand next to him for a while. When your team reaches the round limit, the game is over. What's new:

perfect backward reconciliation (Unlagged is as good as a client-side hit test now, barring prediction error)

Blow Me is a Quake 3 trickjump movie created in whole by HPO Formaldihyde. aka: Phucker. Runtime is 4.49 seconds. File size is 110 megs. No physics changeing mods were used. (ie: Osp, Cpma) Just Quake3 and 1.31 point relese. Tho devmap, God and Give were used (nessecary for multiple attempts to get the sweet shots). I took a lot of time and care to make sure the jumps coincided with the song for maximum visual experiance. Total time spent on this creation was about a month. (DivX Codec needed)

The Challenge Pro Mode is a modification for Q3A which aims to make the game more exciting and challenging for "expert players". It is not a remake of Q3A as QW or Q2, although some features from both previous id Software games have made their way into pro mode. Notes for version 0.99w5:

chg: "Duel" armorsystem is now the default for team games as well

chg: quad shell is now always blue

chg: testmodel/testgun cruft removed

chg: all HUD variations show flag status in CTF

chg: popsicle effect is now totally white rather than bluish-white was a bit too close to the Quad effect with some configs

chg: be really agressive about popsicle trajectory tests stops them slipping through seams on maps like DM6

chg: max number of demos on menu increased to a real 240 rather than an id-math 128, which is about 40 :P

chg: creepcam_smoothfactor renamed to creepcamSmoothRate since that's what it actually is

This map pak is a set of deathmatch maps created specifically for people who play on the Burial Grounds Q3A Servers. It's a special group of people, who play with friends for fun. Each map is designed with a 6 - 10 player load in mind, and definitely not intended for competitive play styles or mods, such as CPMA.

Each map contains custom texturing, including the new Burial Grounds logo showcased throughout. There is also a soundtrack for each map, tailored specifically for these maps. We hope you enjoy the tunes, as we may release them in MP3 format soon after this pak is released.

Julie Stepan mingles with the nerds waiting in the BYOC registration line. If you haven't been to QuakeCon before, you'd be surprised of the amount of crazy people which turn out for the event. We have some costumed crazies and a guy who looks like John Carmack.

Sponsors

Video from all around E3 2009. You will see booth babes, the Nintendo, Activision, Microsoft, and Sony booths along with many others. There are also special appearances by Mario, Sonic, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.